Bedlam
by creepstakes
Summary: There was going to be a new arrival tomorrow, they say that he thinks he's the host of a dragon. It's not so strange when I think about it, after all, there's a fox in me. Or at least that is what he calls himself.
1. What Approaches?

I hadn't indented to post this here, because of the content, but whatever becomes too high in rating for will be cut. The original, unedited version, can be found on my LiveJournal.

In my head, this mental hospital is a Makai version. That is to say, it's not necessarily an accurate description of life inside an 'asylum'. There will be yaoi and there will very confusing moments, because of the nature of the body the three share. Bedlam follows Kurama's journey, mostly, and so this means what he isn't told, he doesn't know. Shuuichi is the original, he was born in the body long before his other personalities were. The others claim that they're the original, but they aren't.

My muse wanted something different. This is the result. I'm just tagging along for the ride.

-

**Bedlam**

_"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."_

Edgar Allan Poe

-

The blank wall.

Same as always.

It was a white wall, one of four. It made his headroom. There was a floor and ceiling as well, only he didn't care about them.

It was just the wall and him.

And that damn staring feeling he got from the other side of it. Walls weren't meant to have eyes. Were they? They weren't meant to leer at him. They were built, by hands, the hands of men, to house and hold people.

To house the crazies, locked away.

He was one of them. Or so they said. He wasn't insane like the others, not troubled. The others being people outside of his own body. This prison of muscle and flesh. They were complete people, he was too. Only he had the others here with him as well, inside.

He hated and loved those he deemed appropriate.

The wall glared on.

He shivered.

"I want to be let out," he growled, receiving no reply.

There wouldn't be for a long time. Only the camera near the ceiling of one of the not-glaring wall linked at his repetitively, and he shifted his head to stare at it. Keeping mind off the glaring wall.

"Now," he demanded.

He couldn't move.

They wouldn't let him.

In his room, made of four walls – one that hated him – there was a bed. And on that bed he lays, against his will. Wishing to be let go.

"Let me out!" he roared pulling at the brown bands holding him down and the strap across his chest.

The fox on his wall grinned at him. The camera morphed, sunk into the wall and opened into a allrge eye that spanned across the wall plastered with foxes. A large, golden eye.

"Fuck you!" he shouted at it, because it was grinning at him wasn't it? The others were minding their own business while that fox on the wall, grinned at him.

He calmed.

"You aren't free," he said calmly. "You locked in here too."

"But we share a body, it's only a matter of time before I crush you," his own voice replied, but not of his own will. Furious he screamed at the ceiling again. The fox had controlled his voice. He still had the damnable ability to do so.

"Fuck you!" Kurama screamed, not because he was in the habit of swearing so visciously all the time, but because he hated this creature to his very core. He'd kill him, without fail. He'd crush the fox and watch him fade away. This body would be his. Not theirs.

"You will say here. Until I say," the fox said, grinning. Grinning at him from the wall that was not-glaring.

He hated mentioning his existence but he spoke his name. "And Shuuichi?"

"Shuuichi will die, and then you too." He grinned a little, then the fox said, "Stay here like a good boy."

"I want to look out the window." Outside of this headroom, into the four white walled room with the pictures of foxes plastered to the walls, broken only by the cabinet, bed, window and door. Reality.

That window reminded him that there was something other than this white walled, plain existence that he coloured with the thoughts and beings inside him. He'd never really been outside, like shuuichi had. No, he'd always been here, at the mercy of Youko. It'd change, eventually. He'd destroy them both.

"I'll do it."

-

"Hello Yusuke."

In considerably better condition than most of the other inmates, Shuuichi stood stock still in the middle of his single room watching Yusuke through the reflection of the window. Shuuichi's door had been open, which was why Yusuke had slowed down while on his rounds to poke his head inside his room only to find the bed empty.

"Shit! Hey. You scared me; I didn't expect you to be there." He gestured to the window. It was well past midnight after all, most of the other patients were asleep, apart from those few insomniacs who spent their time watching TV in the common room or in their rooms.

"That's quite alright. It's Youko by the way," he said, turning his head slightly to look at Yusuke over his shoulder from the corner of his eye.

"Oh, Youko. Hello, I haven't talked to you in a long time." Even as he said it Yusuke swore mentally, Youko wasn't the nicest of Shuuichi's personalities. The orderlies had been told to stay in pairs when Youko emerged, however his appearances seemed few and far between these days as Kurama slowly grew stronger and Shuuichi have up control entirely. Kurama had been created by Shuuichi after all, specifically to deal with Youko in ways that Shuuichi himself could not. There had been another before Kurama, but he had been crushed when Kurama appeared.

"Yes… It has been a while." Youko turned back to the window, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

"Is everything okay?" Yusuke asked, he knew for a fact that Youko appeared only by forcing Kurama down, it was never voluntary for him to surface.

"…I-" His head lowered slightly, probably to look at the floor. "He couldn't sleep. I wanted to look out the window."

"Would you like to come with me and I'll get you a drink or something? To help you sleep?" Yusuke offered, deciding to not offer sleeping pills. Youko didn't like medication.

Shuuichi looked up for a second and what he could see of his reflection in the window morphed suddenly, from stern brooding to a blank but kind expression. Though it wasn't simply a change in expression, his body shifted in ways that couldn't specifically be distinguished, but they were there. In an instant it was obvious that it was no longer Youko in control.

"Yusuke," he said, blinking.

Yusuke sighed, and grinned. After a while it had become easier to tell when Kurama was in controll. Mostly it was his tone of voice, the way he said Yusuke's name. With an odd sort of old fondness.

"Hey Kurama. Youko said you were having trouble sleeping." Yusuke suddenly felt more at ease. He shifed his weight onto his other foot and placed a hand in one of his pockets, in doing so removing it from his belt which held restraining equipment ready to be used if so was necessary, along with a radio and torchlight. Behind him, he could hear a nurse going through each room, making sure each patient was accounted for.

"He did?" There was a slight hint of annoyance in his voice, although he hid it well. Youko and Kurama hated each other, virtually rivals in the same body they generally didn't react well to hearing about each others actions. "I assure you I am fine, thank you for your concern."

Yusuke nodded, taking that as a sort of vague dissmissal. "Why don't you try and get some sleep? New arrival tomorrow."

Kurama smiled sadly. New arrivals tended to be hard for the whole ward until they had settled in. This one was coming straight to them from the Emergency Care Centre, which meant he would probably take a long while to settle if his admission was involuntary.

Kurama himself had never seen anything but these walls, and didn't mind their company, but sometimes he wished for something else. Something besides the hollow corridors and sleepless nights of the Makai Psychiatric Facility.

Yusuke closed the door behind him.

-

Outside of his headroom, Kurama paled as the sun shone through the window. Strapped down to his chair he sat, in group session, head tilted away from them all, staring at the patch of sun, crawling its way along the floor.

Life of its own, he thought, it's not the sun it's alive. A living being.

Stupid.

In various chairs around each corner of the room, comfortable as possible, the patients sat. Obedient. Botan encouraged them to all talk about how they felt today, and if their moods were fairing well, to talk about past experiences of things that simply came to mind. The talking cure, she called it.

Kurama was not insane.

Anti-depressants and the gods only knew what else they had him on. He was told what he was on, he didn't care. He'd forgotten by now anyway.

They said he was a special case and his medication had to be monitored carefully. Not too much, or the world renowned rare appearance of a non-splintering multiple personality disorder case would be ruined. Kurama didn't care much.

He was going to win.

He was not insane. There was only a few too many people inside. Outsiders wouldn't understand.

The sun was still creeping. Slowly, closer and closer to the chair and Kurama.

It approached in burning glory.

His hands were tied to his chair, his special chair.

Chatter around him, he ignored them, sun approaching, his axiety rising.

"Kurama?" The voice asked, female. He turned to face her, blinking. She sat on her chair, hands in her lap. Smiling. Inviting him.

All eyes were on him now. Watching.

"She wanted to know how you were today," one of the patients said, crossing their arms and leaning back in their chair.

Unsaid words filled the room as Kurama stared at the ceiling. _Why ask _him_? He's a loose canon. We're here for help, not to listen to his warped opinions. Hell probably freak out again like last time. It's a good thing they keep him strapped to that chair now. I wonder that he's going to say…  
_  
He said, "Fresh blood today," because he didn't feel like saying anything about how the sun both scared and enticed him, about Youko's threats, or how his nose itched. He didn't know how he felt other than anxious and restless.

He was curious though.

Botan nodded. "Yes, that's correct."

"Do you know anything about them?" one of the patients asked quietly.

Botan crossed her feet at her ankles before her and leant back in her chair. "His name is Hiei, he won't be coming for group sessions for a while."

"Have you seen him?" another asked.

"Briefly. It may take him a while to settle in."

"What's his name again?"

The sun was almost touching the leg of his chair, and Kurama waited patiently for it to spontaneously combust, taking him with it. A blaze of glory. Bright, hungry, burning fucking glory.

With nothing left.

"Hiei," he uttered.


	2. Inside Outside

-

**Inside, Outside**

_"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."_

Carl Gustav Jung

-

Once Youko had woken in the middle of a group session, taken hold of his plastic chair, and swung it at the nurse and social worker. He attacked one of the other patients in blind rage too, and that had been overkill at best. The episode had occurred not long after Kurama and he had spoken to each other for the first time. Shuuichi had been on edge for two weeks before Youko had literally pushed Shuuichi down and taken control for a good month.

Since then he had undergone group and one on one sessions with his hands restrained.

It was in a private session with the social worker, Botan, and Shuuichi's doctor that Kurama had emerged, they had spoken to each other - Kurama and Youko - something not normally possible between patients with multiple personality disorders. Along with that came the strangeness of having a mere four personalities instead of the average seven or above. Where most peoples minds had splintered into many different personalities, Shuuichi – the original, the host – had only created new personalities when he could not handle certain situations.

Youko was all the rage and vanity that Shuuichi himself had been to weak to muster up, Kurama was the strength to question and command Youko's abilities.

"Who are you?" the doctor had asked, sitting on the old and worn gray couch beside Kurama, his hands clasped in his lap, appearing attentive.

"I am better than Youko," had been his first words, immediately countered by Youko. He surfaced with a sneer, pulled at the cords that restrained his hands by his sides - but still allowed him room to move – and positioned his fingers as if he were attempting to choke the very air before him.

"There is no such thing," he said, leaning forwards on the couch, and staring at his fists as they clenched and unclenched.

"You have no control over me." The as yet unnamed personality countered, smiling warmly up at the ceiling.

"We'll see about that."

Then Youko had sunk and disappeared for a very long time, taking Shuuichi with him.

The fourth personality, Kuronue, had never appeared after that. The doctor had not pressed the issue when Kurama had not acknowledged his presence, and Youko had only scowled. Shuuichi himself had not yet arisen again to be asked if Kuronue was still around. Presumably he hadn't been needed once Kurama had come along. Kuronue had only ever acted as a buffer, and tended to be as rutheless as Youko in his methods of fighting back, towards the end, they had gotten on a little too well.

"My name is Kurama."

-

In his bedroom now, looking out the window. He couldn't sleep again. Yusuke had yet to make his rounds.

If he slept, or tried to sleep, Youko would take over. He knew it.

But he was oh so very tired.

Outside of the hospital was beautiful. Lush gardens and lovely rolling hills in every direction. They were in the country. This place was made to be as close to 'home' – whatever that was – as possible.

The doors to the outside were locked unless supervision was provided and one had grounds privileges. The courtyard did little for him, and so he didn't feel like making the trek there just yet. Perhaps later.

He ended up there anyway, and he growled in annoyance. One minute he was by the window and then as if only blinking he stood before the glass door that led into the courtyard. One of them had taken over.

Kurama was positive that it had been Shuuichi because otherwise he would have woken up inside. It was like he ceased to exist when Shuuichi was in control, and it angered him that he had to rely on a human that was to week to deal with daily issues. Yet he did not admit to himself that he was a product of those inabilities. For he was as real as the door was before him. He raised a hand and pushed against it. It gave way, allowing him passage into the night.

It was cold. But he hadn't had a chance to pull a shirt on, and so he strolled into the center of the courtyard in only his sleeping clothes. That which was comprised of a thin pair of cotton pants, too big for him they hung low on his hips and were rolled up at his ankles. So very caring of Shuuichi's family to provide him with clothes every so often.

He had an urge to dance under the moon that shone down on him, and so he smiled up at it, thanking it for its kind graces. Strangely he felt calmer at night rather than during the day. It was the time of the thief, the murky goings on of the underbelly of monsters that prowled around the country side, the time for the moon to reign. Silver, calming light shone.

The red bricked courtyard rose all around him, boxing him in, and he stood in the center, staring up, smiling. The air was dead. Its presence was still around him lifeless.

He dropped his head to look at the statue standing in the fountain, a female holding a gourd, water poured from it calmingly catching the light of the moon and glowing majestically. He hated it. Everything was made of plastic, fake things. This courtyard was a lie.

The air took a breath, and died again.

Kurama pulled his hair from his face, annoyed, and with the band he kept on his wrist, tied his hair up and off his neck.

"You'll get a cold like this you know," a voice interrupted his thoughts.

Kurama turned and calmed once he realized who it was. Walking towards him, glass door flashing in the light as it slid closed. He was a tall man, once strong and noble, now drawn and strong only in his ability to not scream at the things he saw which weren't there, and the things that talked to him. Schizophrenia.

Kurama smiled, he liked this one. "I won't be out for long. I can't sleep," he said, and every time he said it, he got the feeling that he was misunderstood somehow. He can't sleep. Wont.

"You're in good company. I haven't slept for three months now." He chuckled and took a seat on the long stone chair facing the fountain and Kurama.

Kurama wondered if the way Kuwabara tilted his head then was because of the picture Kurama presented, standing under the moonlight, shirtless, before the fountain and surrounded by the tight red bricks of the walls around them, covered in creeping vines. And the flowers around them, with butterflies, even at night, skipping about them.

And it was all fucking fake, he was the only real thing here.

"Not at all?" he asked, walking to sit beside the gaunt man.

"A little," he replied, frowning in thought. "But for seconds at a time and mostly without me knowing."

"Oh." Kurama's eyes drifted away from Kuwabara's profile as he watched the ever constant flow from the gourd and into the base of the fountain. Listening to the ever constant trickle of water.

"There's...people, things, that talk when you're around." Kuwabara said suddenly, startling Kurama.

Slightly annoyed that the peace was been destroyed, he asked, "What?"

Kuwabara frowned again, and crossed his arms over his chest. As if doubting he should have said anything. "Nothing, never mind."

Kurama watched as Kuwabara began to scan each other the flower bushes, then as his eyes snapped to the fountain. As if started he turned to Kurama, and stuttered, not aware that Kurama had been watching him until he'd turned to face him. "If- uh… If you don't mind, can I ask you a question?"

Kurama raised his brow, but otherwise said nothing.

Kuwabara hesitated.

"Go ahead," Kurama pushed.

"What's it like?"

"What's what like, Kuwabara?" He knew what he meant though. He just liked the way he struggled to find the right words.

Kurama liked the fact that this man had the sense to choose his words carefully, it didn't happen much and so he wanted to draw it out. It was selfish, but he ate it up like a ravenous beast.

-

He woke up inside his headroom and did nothing by scream at the top of his lungs, as loud as possible.

The boy whimpering in the corner, his mirror reflection, covered his ears and said nothing.

"Don't you hurt him! Don't you hurt him!" he screamed.

"Relax," the fox said. "I want to talk with my family."

"You have none! You're a figment!"

Then he glared fiercely as for the first time in a long time, Youko appeared before him. He leant over the bed Kurama was strapped to and snarled at him, an inch from his face. "That's is not true. I am as real as you are, and that," he spat, pointing at the boy in the corner, "is too."

Kurama snorted.

The boy flinched.

Youko's face, fear itself, twisted into a demented look of pure evil and he smirked. A white fang appearing.

Kurama glared at him. "Don't you dare."

He didn't know what the fox was going to do, but he had enough sense to know that that smirk was not good.

Youko merely stood and sighed, turning away and fading out of the headroom between one step and the next.

-

They woke up in confinement, wearing a straight jacket.

Even so, Kurama could feel the bandages around his wrists and neck.

"Youko, what did you do?" Shuuichi asked.

They received no reply, and though they hated each other, both Kurama and Shuuichi curled up in the corner of the room together. Like equals.


	3. Hiei

**Hiei**

"_Fate is a cruel whore."_

_-_

Kurama could have said that he'd been alone for the whole week he spent in there, but it's not the truth and never will be. He was never alone.

They sat against the wall, their arms slowly starting to tingle from the lack of blood flow and their muscles aching. Kurama had given up in ignoring Shuuichi and allowed the timid boy's whistling as they lay on their side, curled up in a tight ball.

They were drugged and their hands were freed for a short time while they ate, but then the solitude and confinement began again.

Shuuichi was having more and more trouble keeping himself from screaming, and so Kurama had eventually allowed him most of his motor skills, but not all. They lived virtually side by side at the same time, they could have spoken to each other like this, but neither did. It would have pulled the agonising silence from the air but still they didn't talk.

Shuuichi was too afraid and Kurama thought Shuuichi to insignificant to pay any more attention to him than he already was.

Youko stirred bellow the surface, annoyed and slowly becoming more and more agitated.

They'd only been inside a few days.

Youko chuckled and said quietly to them both, "This is war, and this body will not loose to the outsiders, no matter who inhabits it at the time."

-

He went straight to his room as soon as he was let out, the nurses had told him that he had to behave himself now, and comforted him.

Youko still wouldn't tell him what he'd done, but by the wary look of the patients as he walked down the corridors, bare-foot, he knew Youko had made a big fuss about something.

And so, he'd spent a week in solitary confinement for someone else's crimes. It had not been Kurama that had caused the trouble, but Youko. And Youko, the coward that he was, had submerged himself and hidden; leaving Shuuichi and Kurama to deal with his punishment, something he probably thought of as sly. It only irritated him.

It had not done their sanity much good. Everyone knew that being alone, even superficially, was enough to send anyone insane.

Kurama was not in a good mood.

He'd thrown the door open and found himself not caring that it hit the cement wall and then slammed shut from the sheer force of his anger, then he'd walked to the mirror and begun to unwind the bandages at his neck and wrists.

Stitches, severed skin…blood.

"I have my ways of creating weapons," Youko whispered through Kurama lips. It infuriated Kurama so much he kicked the wall beside him mirror – full length and stuck to the wall, cornered in a dark wooded frame – then spun and stared pacing back and forth.

"You could have killed us," he spat.

Youko chuckled. "I met the pretty new one because of it. Aren't you happy?"

He snorted and turned on his heal to walk towards the mirror, then back towards his bed, and then turned towards the mirror again. "You met him; I didn't."

"Your life is so boring you look forward to new bodies," youko snarled, apparently out for blood.

"You look forward to carnage. Don't talk to me of having interests better than anyone else's," Kurama growled, watching his feet take steps until he turned.

"Door." Youko smirked.

"What?" he said, and without thinking he looked up to the door and froze.

Standing there in the doorway, with the door suddenly open, was the new arrival. Arms crossed, head tilted slightly to one side watching with a blank look. And yet amusement seemed to prowl behind those eyes, those bright rich brown eyes.

Black. All black. Except for the bandage covering his forehead. Right down to his fingernails.

"Hello again." Youko leered.

Kurama felt like a great divine hand had just forced him back and pushed him from one world into another, right from his very own body. He floated for a second, maybe less and then he used his anger to pull himself back and push Youko back the way he had done to Kurama.

"Go away," Kurama snapped, his head jerking to the side. He looked inside himself and saw Youko give a scorching glare, then seemed to remember something and smirked, bowed, and disappeared.

Completely in control now Kurama turned back to Hiei.

"Whatever Youko said to you before, I'd like to apologise for it. I'm very pleased to meet you. My name is Kurama." He bowed slightly. Kurama's standard greeting once Youko had met a person before himself.

The man standing in his doorway was quiet for a second, perhaps a few more, before he blinked slowly and narrowed his eyes at him. "He's not apologising; you are. It's not accepted."

Kurama used his best warm smile, a little thrown off by this new one's blunt nature. "Very true."

He laid his eyes on the bandages strewn around his room he frowned, forgetting the beautiful man for a second, despite his intense curiosity. Which bubbled to the surface and lingered in Kurama's mind haphazardly as he zoned out for a second, staring at the bandages on the floor.

The dark man merely snorted and left, leaving Kurama to tilt his head in thought as he stared at the now empty doorway.

Interesting, very interesting.

For one, why had he been there at all if he was just going to reject the apology anyway?

And secondly, what _had _Youko done?

-

"You have a third eye," Kuwabara muttered quietly to Hiei as they sat in group session, in their circle again. The chairs against the walls and Kurama staring at the approaching sun again, his neck craned to the side, hair covering his face.

His wrists hurt. They'd re-bandaged him and berated him for taking them off, and then when they tied him into his chair for group session they'd tied him a little higher than normal. It still stung though, his skin shifted and ground together, only it was too clean of a cut and it didn't feel as nice as it should have.

It was the messy ragged cuts that he liked, puncture wounds and…

There was a long stretch of quiet after Kuwabara's comment. And Kurama could feel the eyes on him once more.

Say something, they said, come up with one of your ice breaking sentences.

You can never have the best of both worlds, Kurama thought, it's one or the other.

"Indeed," slipped from his lips, and Kurama narrowed his eyes, pursing his lips.

"Did you say something Kurama?" Botan prodded, raising her eyebrows.

"He didn't, I did," Youko crooned, taking control now, only leaving Kurama in a state so that he could see what Youko was doing, but not control. Not even if he tried to wrestle back control at the moment he was in the same position as... the other one. Shuuichi.

The dark man narrowed his eyes, and Youko smirked at him as the patients visibly shifted a little nervously and the orderly suddenly began to pay attention.

"Why do you keep him around?" Hiei asked in a tone that was not quite bored, though close to it. He was most likely confused as to why they dared risk allowing Youko to have human contact, considering his record of violence and unstable manner.

Botan tilted her head to the side, "Do you mind me explaining your situation to Hiei, Youko?"

When no response was made, she turned to Hiei, who sat, cross-legged in his chair his hands in his lap. "Shuuichi's situation is special."

Youko spat on the floor and glared at Botan viciously at the name, and inside Kurama grimaced. They said nothing however, and merely allowed Botan to continue.

"They have a rare case of Multiple Personality Disorder. Instead of branching off into many personalities, there has only been four, three of which exist at the moment. They are such a rare case that we can't allow any strong sort of medication to help keep them calm. And we, the hospital I mean, feel that solitary confinement would not be the best direction to take. It would crush their psyche instead of help them. Human interaction is needed. We have to take the risk in this delicate situation."

"What about me?" he asked, rubbing his cheek against his shoulder rather than raise a hand to scratch at it himself, staring at Botan from the tops of his eyes.

"It alright if everyone else hears?"

"I don't care." Though it was obvious he was at a stalemate in his own mind. What a stubborn man.

"You were brought here for a delusional disorder."

Hiei snorted and averted his eyes, looking at the floor, clearly not believing her.

"Hiei, why don't you tell us about the dragon?" she prodded.

Immediately he turned his head to glare viciously at her, tension evident in his body. "No." A curt bark, poisonous as ivy.

Youko tilted his head to the side and stepped back, releasing control. Seemingly satisfied with whatever information he had gleaned. Kurama, shaking his hair from his face, blinked at him curiously.

"Dragon?" he asked in a soft voice.

Then he found himself on the end of Hiei's glare.

Oh, like the sun, like the sun. Burning me up, taking me completely and utterly. In a big fucking blaze of light. Please, yes please. Now. Now, now, now.

He shivered a little and gritted his teeth, willing the excitement in his veins to disperse. Though it didn't listen to him.

Should it be the will of the powers that be, that the fox finds a playmate?

He tilted his head to the side and licked his lips, enduring the glare.

_Kurama?_ came the timid voice. _Kurama, I like him._

"Shut up," he muttered angrily. "This has nothing to do with you."

_…sometimes I find myself liking Kuronue more than you._


End file.
